Today in weird and incongruous ripple effects: Thomas Tallis’s Spem in alum, a “40-part motet … written around 1570,” has apparently rocketed up the iTunes classical chart thanks to its inclusion in the mind-bogglingly popular erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. Spem is the piece of music that Christian Grey plays on his first night with Anastasia, so, now you know what the fortysomethings of this nation are making out to. (“Making out.”)
